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Monday, September 4, 2017

This weekend me and the Mr. went down 7 blocks to our little local fairground.

Within there is a garden...all flowery and quaint..but amidst this garden is, as the cliche goes,

worlds within worlds.

I love butterflies..I mean really who doesn't?!? We humans see the beauty and assume it's for us ")

Or maybe that was just me :P

Beside the garden was the butterfly bus where one enters the tagging station.

The lovely Master Gardeners within demonstrated how they tagged a butterfly for the migration down to Mexico (teeny weeny dot sticker with a transmitter.)

These gardeners plant all the yummy food plants that makes the butterflies taste buds sing...when the butterflies are in the small egg stage they try to get them in tanks so that nothing..including strong winds ,rain, or the next door neighbors weed eaters can damage them and that they achieve the migration.

It truly was amazing to see the bus/ incubation station.

The Master Gardener explained the stages and showed us how to tell the sex of a Monarch. The fella's have finer lines and a black dot on the lower wings..the ladies have thicker lines (because even in the animal world thicker is better ")

Due to so many of the habitats being sprayed with pesticides along with human encroachment we are losing our beauties...Not just Monarchs but Swallowtail and several others.

Monday, August 14, 2017

It has been 10 months since my last post and I sure have missed you all.

We moved from the south up to the midwest.

The little town we live in has music piped through the streets and citizens to match no other area we have ever lived...I say this through experience. A story that I will happily share...

So get ready for the good , the bad, the down right dirty laundry and ultimate proof of the preservation of the human soul through the largest display of human kindness I have ever been blessed to receive.

It all started with a job offer that literally came and was signed on within 6 days... 3 days later came the moving trucks! 2 of them.

All studio stuff with the exception of the flammables ...in the truck...all pots pans knick a bracks...in the truck.....all furniture with accumulated dust bunnies...in the truck and like it or not...all memories of a previous life...left behind. No more worries, no more sand gnats no more crazy neighbors trying to steal your land for a free fence.

We have returned to grass you can walk through and lightening bugs, I have flowers in a garden that grows and my husband now gets his hair cuts at Art Barber the barber, Barber shop (not kidding) .

We have a little doc down the street and a hardware store that has baby chickens and ducks for sale, a ice cream shop that has a favorite flavor special weekly.....So many things I just can hardly mention them all that makes this our home....But above all...Our neighbors. This town and all the people in it are each others neighbors. All of them are us!

That is not anything we have ever encountered before.

After months of looking and looking "sticker shock" and more looking " outright guffawed laughter" ...finally we found our forever home. She is a french provencial that some one tried to confuse her identity by making a room tuscan- a room spanish- a room greek ....and above all that ...mustard and canary yellows (inside and out) !!!!

Those who know me and know me well ..Know I simply loathe yellow....hate it! I think it is the color of all that is yucky....please do not make me go into further detail on this opinion? It will be no good for either of us...shhh shhh....

Now understanding that I am a eclectic person through and through...My newly renovated home will look just as random. Minus the greek columns and the tuscan grapes patterns...oh and spanish tile...and I will also share that every room had no less than 2 phone jacks and some had 5....what in the world is that all about? Hubby said DSL..I say brown chicken brown cow.....my theory makes for a better soap opera") Gives our french girl a little pizazz along with that whole around the world tour ..don'tcha think?

(Please note that all pictures are before reno)

I will do a separate post showing all reno differences later.

We closed on our South Carolina home on March 31st....and Signed on our new beauty April 12th.

Prouder parents we could not have been!!!

Now lets tear her up!!!

In the construction process all good consumers do a couple of things before hiring a contractor...#1 what is your budget.......#2 make a list of all work you need done/want done/and your dreaming! After you make this list..mark off what you can do yourself..I mean really do..not what you want to be able to do....BE REALISTIC! {she secretly whispered to herself after claiming she was super woman} Then run off to home advisor build it and a few other sites to get general pricing for your area..you can even get free estimates through lowes and other larger places. I first tried (in support of my local small business to hire within the town but they truly where super busy already and I was late asking to get a slot"(

We had several bids to do this and that..only 3 that had all my list on the budget and now it is down to who do you think has time ..we picked the middle guy.

He came on a Saturday and we discussed everything in detail...agreed on over all pricing and how payment would be given. Money down was given...He was to start on Monday with full crew.

Monday comes and no worker people..I did get a text at 9:10 a.m. that they were stuck on another job and wouldn't be on my job till Wednesday. hmmmm....Wednesday rolls around and 3 guys show up but no boss guy..the one has painters tape to tape everything of which i asked why because should you tear out and drywall everything before you tape??? Just a question and then the other tried to make 2 x4 four boxes to hang on my ceiling for my beams....UT OH...this is not looking good...Boss comes in to assure me...the whole time saying we will get it... (little voice repeating GET YOUR MONEY BACK NOW) Thursday and friday was spent taking down lights I didn't want and painting my ceilings white again....oh and that paint was going to double as the primer for the rooms that were loud!!! This paint was the only paint that this company purchased..I had to buy all other paint...come to find out it was not paint at all but plaster of paris mixed with old paint and water to extend...Later caught companies men trying to wash out my old sherwin williams cans..hmmm suspicious...Long story short after flooding/shorting out electric box and ruining drywall in 3 rooms and 8 days later....they were fired! That is where our real story begins.
It was the towns local electrician I called in to check on the companies work because I kept hearing buzzing....the guys took down the lights in the "demo" and put the white and black wires back in the same nuts!!!! (NEVER DO THIS)...EVER!!! we are lucky our house didn't burn down.

I looked at Gary the electrician and asked...what do I do and who could help? 1 phone call and the best of the best showed up that day....It was literally the towns (in my opinion) best builder and general contractor that I could have ever have prayed for. One man called the calvary and before I know it...a months worth of estimates and hoping and going through some fly by night crap that could have burned the whole thing to the ground....Was reconciled with and by my neighbors..my new family.
I truly hope that some day I can answer a call to repay these blessings.